First, I have read in several places that it was a mistake for HP to drop their price so quickly.

You’ll never see Apple do it that way. There would be a subtle config change for the shipping product, and the unsold product would be sold through the online refurb store at the discounted price. Meantime Apple would accept the inventory pain.

...integrated requires three things: Software, Hardware and Services (ecosystem). Google only ever wanted to provide the software. I don’t think they ever wanted to provide the services and to create and sustain the ecosystem. Why should we believe that they’re going to turn the page (no pun intended) and suddenly be good at providing a complete mobile device ecosystem now?

They’re certainly welcome to try.

Software: on phones ok, but a fail on tablets.
Hardware: Moto is at best in 3rd place
Services: Android Market stinks for both consumers and developers. Movies, music, books and other media? So-so, but still no match to what iOS offers.

Apple makes profit on hardware. They aim for break-even (to slightly profitable) from services. I don’t even know how they book iOS in terms of revenue/profit.

Googorola needs to make profits on hardware. Moto hasn’t succeeded in doing this. What can Google do to change that? We’ll have to wait and see what they try. Maybe they’d have a fighting chance if they could lure J. Ive from Apple…but we all know how unlikely that is.

Yet another wannabe. You can watch the video Gruber refers to here. Also notice how many tries it takes for him to get the 2 finger bezel gestures to work. Same price as the iPad 2. Some people just can’t learn from others’ mistakes; they insist on repeating the same mistakes. There’s a word for that.

?Very, Very Responsive?

Dieter Bohn from The Verge, at around the 1:20 mark in his video review of Fusion Garage?s new Grid 10 forked-version-of-Android tablet: ?Taking a look at the pinch-to-zoom action, it?s very, very responsive. I?m really impressed with what they?ve managed to do here.?

If my iPad?s pinch-to-zoom were that choppy, I?d take it back to the Apple Store, because I?d know there was something seriously wrong with it.

First, I have read in several places that it was a mistake for HP to drop their price so quickly.

You’ll never see Apple do it that way. There would be a subtle config change for the shipping product, and the unsold product would be sold through the online refurb store at the discounted price. Meantime Apple would accept the inventory pain.

Let’s be fair. Apple DID do that with the original iPhone.

Yeah but no but that was a bit more complicated. As far as I recall, to correct the launch pricing error, Apple gave earlier buyers a credit, repositioned the 8GB iPhone at the 4GB price and discontinued the 4GB iPhone. Thus preserving the lower price point.

( Those iPhones were locked to AT&T, and at that time Apple had revenue sharing with AT&T, so the true price was much higher. In my view the rigid revenue sharing demand turned out to be Apple’s most brilliant move in entering the cellphone market)

First, I have read in several places that it was a mistake for HP to drop their price so quickly.

You’ll never see Apple do it that way. There would be a subtle config change for the shipping product, and the unsold product would be sold through the online refurb store at the discounted price. Meantime Apple would accept the inventory pain.

Well, actually Apple dropped the price of the original iPhone a few months after bringing it to market, by I think, a couple of hundred dollars.

Signature

The measure of the worth of a product is how much people are willing to pay for it, not how many people will buy it if the price is low enough.

You’ll never see Apple do it that way. There would be a subtle config change for the shipping product, and the unsold product would be sold through the online refurb store at the discounted price. Meantime Apple would accept the inventory pain.

I don’t know if Apple Insider’s numbers are correct. If they are, that comes out to a $370 charge per TouchPad. Is HP just giving them to Best Buy? If so, how low will BB drop the price just to get them out of their warehouses? This is just going to further implode the viability of the non-iPad market. Unit sales might go up with all the cheap tablets offered, but there’s no way they can sustain that business.

...that big-box retailer took delivery of 270,000 HP TouchPads and but only managed to sell 25,000 units, or less than 10 percent of its inventory.

As part of the restructuring, HP said it would take a $.05 charge per share to account for the stockpile of unsold TouchPad, which, given the company’s 2.07 billion outstanding shares, amounts to just over $100 million.

Definitely going to give Android tablets trouble competing on price. I wonder how many ‘droid tablets are sitting in warehouses.

HP Looks to Dispose of TouchPads by Any Means Possible

So what to do with the stock of TouchPads? Sell them for pennies on the dollar? Burn them? Bury them in concrete in the desert?

HP says it will be up to its sales partners, which include Best Buy Comp., Inc. (BBY) and Staples, Inc. (SPLS). It will give them a case payout for the devices, which they can either return to HP or using the cash, sell the stock at fire sale prices.

It’s unclear whether any of the big box retails are going to bite on the latter route. But if they do, the former Palm unit may just have one last gift in store for its fans—a deeply discounted TouchPad. Such an offer may even convince some skeptics to partake. Much like that girl at the bar starts looking better after a couple drinks, the rough edges of the TouchPad may become lovable quirks, if it’s offered for, say, $150 USD.

I couldn’t find a really good place for this story, so I guess I’ll shoehorn it in here. Most of this thread is about the literally hundreds of pathetic attempts of various manufacturers to emulate the success of the iPad. This story is the opposite. It’s the story of Acer, who simply denies that the iPad is a success at all.

Acer Chairman J.T. Wang chalked up his company’s poor second-quarter performance as a “correction period,” according to Reuters. His company has seen numerous struggles since the launch of Apple’s iPad, which has cut into the sales of low-cost, low-power netbooks.

Wang reportedly added that he expects the “fever” for tablets to recede, and for consumers to regain interest in traditional style notebooks.

It isn’t the first time Wang has predicted the downfall of the iPad. Last year, Acer’s chairman forecast the iPad’s market share would fall to between 20 percent and 30 percent of the tablet market. To date, Apple still controls well over 50 percent of all tablet sales.

I don’t know what to say when I read a story like this. It’s one thing for some know-nothing jackass commentator to deny the importance of the iPad. It’s a totally different thing to have the world’s second largest PC maker express that opinion. What the heck are they thinking? You certainly can’t overcome the “tablet effect” if you deny that it’s happening. The disruptive effect of the iPad is tumbling company after company. Look for Acer, which just announced it’s first operating loss ever, to be among the iPad’s many victims.

I don’t know what to say when I read a story like this. It’s one thin for some know-nothing jackass commentator to deny the importance of the iPad. It’s a totally different thing to have the world’s second largest PC maker to express that opinion. What the heck are they thinking? You certainly can’t overcome the “tablet effect” if you deny that it’s happening. The disruptive effect of the iPad is tumbling company after company. Look for Acer, which just announced it’s first operating loss ever, to be among the iPad’s many victims.

I don’t know what to say when I read a story like this. It’s one thing for some know-nothing jackass commentator to deny the importance of the iPad. It’s a totally different thing to have the world’s second largest PC maker express that opinion. What the heck are they thinking? You certainly can’t overcome the “tablet effect” if you deny that it’s happening. The disruptive effect of the iPad is tumbling company after company. Look for Acer, which just announced it’s first operating loss ever, to be among the iPad’s many victims.

How about Microsoft with its “everything’s still a PC” definition and “Windows on every device” strategy? Unbelievable as it may seem to us here at AFB, there are actually many smart people out there who don’t get it and continue to “deny the importance of the iPad”.

I don’t know what to say when I read a story like this. It’s one thing for some know-nothing jackass commentator to deny the importance of the iPad. It’s a totally different thing to have the world’s second largest PC maker express that opinion. What the heck are they thinking? You certainly can’t overcome the “tablet effect” if you deny that it’s happening. The disruptive effect of the iPad is tumbling company after company. Look for Acer, which just announced it’s first operating loss ever, to be among the iPad’s many victims.

How about Microsoft with its “everything’s still a PC” definition and “Windows on every device” strategy? Unbelievable as it may seem to us here at AFB, there are actually many smart people out there who don’t get it and continue to “deny the importance of the iPad”.

They don’t believe in the iPad because their future well being depends on the iPad not succeeding. If you make netbooks (Acer) then you have to deny the table effect. If your entire income is dependent on one operating system and one suite of programs that runs on that operating system (Microsoft) then you have to insist that tablets a PCs because your operating system only runs on PCs.

We often talk about the instinct for Fight or Flight, but it’s really Fight, Flight or Freeze. HP just took flight. Android has been fighting and Amazon may be about ready to join the fight. Acer and Microsoft are simply frozen in place. I doubt that strategy is going to be effective as Apple the Disruptor simply rolls right over them.